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While the use of English as a language of instruction in schools has often sparked controversy, the government says it is unlikely to follow neighbor Malaysia and drop the use of English for math and science classes.

The Ministry of National Education’s director general of management for primary and secondary schools, Suyanto, told the Jakarta Globe the ministry would stick to its agenda of increasing the number of schools that use English for math and science lessons.

“No way will we drop it,” he said. “Students have a great capacity to learn, so we should encourage them.”

Last week, the Malaysian government announced that it would dump English as the language of instruction for math and science in schools. Malaysia’s deputy prime minister, Muhyiddin Yassin, as reported by Agence France-Presse, said his government was convinced that science and math needed to be taught in a language that would be easily understood by students.

Critics of Malaysia’s nation-wide policy of teaching these two subjects in English say that student performance has declined since the policy’s introduction in 2003, and that it is particularly unfair for children who are not proficient in the language.

The policy here, however, is quite different. Only a minority of students in Indonesia are taught math and science in English.

In 2006, the ministry started a program to lift the standards of some national schools to international levels, including giving students modern teaching aids such as computers, the Internet and audio visual tools, with all subjects taught in English.

“We plan to expand the program to other schools so more students will get the opportunity to use English in the classroom,” Suyanto said. “We see this as one way to make our students more competitive internationally.”

Data from the ministry suggested that as at the end of 2008, the country had some 300 international-standard junior high schools, 200 senior high schools and 200 vocational schools. These schools only teach at international standards to a certain percentage of students — usually about two to four classes — where all students are taught in English. The other students follow the standard curriculum in Indonesian.

However, the implementation of the government’s policy has not been without controversy. Some education experts have said that teachers are not ready and point to the fact that only 10 percent of the country’s 2.3 million teachers can speak English fluently.

Satria Dharma, chairman of the Teachers Club, said that many adjustments needed to be made to the policy. He agreed that the low number of English-fluent teachers would put students at a disadvantage.

“If the teachers cannot present the lessons clearly, then the students will suffer,” Satria said.

“The program should be stopped and reviewed because our teachers are not ready,” he said. “We can’t expect civil servant teachers to become fluent English speakers overnight.”

Satria said that the government had rushed into the program without conducting any research.

“Using English as the language of instruction should be stopped for a certain period of time, while teacher skills in the language are upgraded.”

Ahmad Muchlis, a math lecturer from the Bandung Institute of Technology, said that “teaching math using Indonesian is good enough,” adding that internationalization and mastering certain subjects can be achieved in many ways.